Smooth sailing...

After the aforementioned brief lapse (see previous reviews), which to date hasn't amounted to more so-so episodes per season then any other, Monk seems firmly back on track. Monk doesn't have long repetitive self-dialogues ("Lobby, lobby, lobby, lobby...") this week. The focus really isn't even entirely on him - notice that he doesn't appear in the last little "tag" scene.

Certainly Monk has things to do in the episode, and it's certainly "about" him. But there's more then Monk losing his job and going on endlessly about it. Mrs. Stottlemeyer is back (sans the children, unfortunately) and her and Stottlemeyer's relationship seems much more...normal, then when we've seen them together the last two times. Ted Levine gets a few chances to shine here for once, professing his love, desire to impress his wife, frustration with a jerk of a boss, friendship for Monk and willingness to slip him in both to get the case solved and throw his friend a bone, etc.

Sharona has surprisingly little to do (and Benjy is absent - I'd rather have seen him here with Monk then wasted in last week's "Blackout"). Tackling the Commissioner based on Monk's "odds" is a nice Sharona moment, but otherwise we don't see much of her.

Disher isn't a total idiot this time out, although he does drone on a bit. That does mean he has more dialogue in this one episode then in the rest of the season to date.

While there isn't any real "mystery" per se, there's something to be admired in the elaborate mechanism of the plot - writer Peter Wolk scatters all the elements leading up to the denouement.

"Gets Fired" is certainly the best episode of the season to date - they've got Tony Shalhoub under rein and avoided the overacting embarassments of "Panic Room," and we get a little more of Stottlemeyer and Disher and not so much of Sharona but just enough.

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